


Alice's Room

by Mhalachai



Category: Firefly
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-04
Updated: 2011-02-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 09:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mhalachai/pseuds/Mhalachai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River lives in a world of her own... more true than even she knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alice's Room

"What's happening?"

Marcus looked up from the video screen as Mah came into the room. "She's resting."

Mah bent over the screen, watching as River Tam leaned against her brother Simon in the infirmary of the ship, Serenity. "She's had a long month."

"A long month, this week."

Marcus pushed himself back from the screens, and walked over to the glass window that looked down onto the bound body of River Tam, wrapped in memory and muscle stimulating wires and a neural net that projected every detail of her drug-induced dreams onto Alliance screens. "Every day is a long day here." He turned his back on River, no longer able to look at her frail body. "How much longer? How many more days will we fill her head with? With this false hope?"

Mah pushed buttons on the screens. "The Reavers attacked Persephone today," he said. "Over three thousand men, women and children butchered, horribly."

"That's not the--"

A second later, Mah's fist slammed into Marcus's windpipe, cutting off his air in a rush of pain. "That is the point!" Mah hissed, shoving Marcus up against the wall. "After all this time, don't you understand? The Reavers are growing in strength by the day! This _child_ is the only one who has made it this far in the training! She is our last hope!"

"To save us from that which we created?" Marcus wheezed. Mah let him go, and he slid to the ground, coughing.

"No matter what happened, it is past," Mah said, looming over the scientist. "What matters is all those people being eaten alive on the border worlds! How long do you think the Reavers will be content to lurk out there? How long before they come here, looking for fresh meat?"

Marcus looked back at the screen. He didn't want to have this argument, because Mah was right. "What about her brother?" he asked instead, nodding at the screen, where River dreamt that her brother held her at his side, safe. "Was she wrong to think he would come after her?"

"No." Mah almost smiled. "He started asking the right questions to the right people. He'll be in a tiny cell for the rest of his life."

"Why not just kill him?" Marcus asked sarcastically, but Mah took the question seriously.

"We may need him, after she... wakes up."

"After we loose her on the world."

"If you wish to give it that name, yes."

Marcus pushed himself to his feet, rubbing his sore throat. "Will her parents come for her?"

"No." Mah wandered over to stare down at River's body. "They were told that Simon died scandalously; they believe their virtuous daughter is learning. They have such high hopes for her."

"And now we ask her to save the world."

"What more can we ask of anyone?" Mah asked, turning to leave.

"What of the rest of them?" Marcus asked. He pointed up at the screen as Captain Malcolm Reynolds came into River's consciousness. After having watched Serenity's crew for so long, he knew everything about them. Except if they were real, or if a lonely River Tam had created them in her mind to keep her company in the black.

Mah leaned over to open the door with the retinal scanner. "Does it matter?" he asked. "It only matters if she believes they are real."

The door sealed behind Mah, and Marcus went back to his chair, to once more watch River Tam's dreams play out on screens for all to see.

There was no excuse for what they were doing. Building up her hopes and dreams.... until the one day they had planned for, when she was ready -- intrude on her dreams, have the dream Reavers kill off her family on Serenity, one by one.

Then they would wake her up, and send her to avenge people who may have never have existed.

They could save millions of lives, if this girl could truly stop the Reavers.

And God would never forgive them for destroying River Tam in the process.

 _the end_


End file.
